Asian Weightlifting Championship, Day 2 Recap – Women’s 49 kg: Ri Song Gum’s Triumph With a New Senior World Record Set

Everyone was waiting for this qualifying competition that is the penultimate before the Olympic Games in Paris. Today we’re going to watch the performance of the first Olympic category, Women’s 49 kg. The battle is expected to be thrilling as the stakes are escalating rapidly.

Today we’re going to spectate the bright performances of 9 female weightlifters who are ready to set high standards in each exercise to surpass their rivals. Here we have a World Record holder in the weight class, Ri Song Gum, in Clean & Jerk of 124 kg and a total of 216 kg. Surodchana Khambao, a gold medalist of the World Championship and Southeast Asian Games. Rosegie Ramos, a two-time gold medalist of the Asian Junior Championships in 2022 and 2023.

So, don’t miss the performance of this female lightweight Olympic category and keep an eye on the tough battle between the division’s strongest athletes. Today we may witness another World Record set by a powerful female lifter who will hit the podium.

Snatch

The performance in the Snatch exercise started from 77 kg.

9: Pham Dihn Thi – 78 kg
8: Lovely V. Inan – 81 kg
7: Panfilova Jamila – 81 kg
6: Fang Wan-Ling – 82 kg
5: Rira Suzuki – 82 kg
4: Lin Cheng-Jing – 84 kg

On this contest day, 52 % of all attempts were successful which is a below-average rate.

Top 3 leaders’ results

Now let’s analyze the Top 3 lifters’ performance:

🥉 Surodchana Khambao – 84 kg
🥈 Rosegie A. Ramos – 88 kg
🥇 Ri Song Gum – 95 kg

The 3rd place was taken by Surodchana Khambao from Thailand with 84 kg on the second attempt who showed her high concentration to get to the Top 3 today. She attempted to lift 84 kg on the first try which resulted in no lift. Then she repeated the lift with the same weight which resulted in success. The third attempt was 2 kilos more, 86 kg, which she lifted decently and got bronze in the Snatch exercise.

Rosegie A. Ramos from the Philippines lifted 88 kg on the third attempt which brought her the silver medal in the exercise. Her first attempt was 85 kg she lifted easily. However, the second try with 87 kg failed, and the third attempt with a one-kilo gap became successful for the lifter.

The winner of the Snatch exercise became Ri Song Gum who showcased her inner strength and resilience on the way to her victory. She proved her supremacy once again by performing last in her weight class. 90 kg was her first successful try, while the second in 95 kg ended with no success.

Finally, she managed to accumulate all her power and lift 95 kg on the third attempt. This was just 1 kilo away from the new Senior World Record.

The Snatch exercise showed us that the battle wasn’t as easy as it could have been expected at first sight. Even though 52% of all lifts were successful, we noticed that some athletes had two failed attempts. It speaks about the fact that the atmosphere on the podium was really competitive and no one wanted to miss their chances.

We have three obvious leaders in the weight category – Thai Surodchana Khamao, Philipo Rosegie Ramos, and Ri Song Gum who have already been leading the division in the previous championships. Each of them has a weight gap of several kilos between their contenders, moreover, during the performance they looked more confident and focused, unlike the rest lifters.

Clean & Jerk

The contest in the Clean & Jerk discipline started with a weight of 93 kg.

9 Panfilova Jamila (1st lift) – 93 kg
8 Pham Dihn Thi – 99 kg
7 Lovely V. Inan – 100 kg
6 ROSEGIE A. RAMOS – 102 kg
5 Fang Wan-Ling – 102 kg 
4 Lin Cheng-Jing – 103 kg

52 % of all attempts in this exercise were successful which is a below-average rate.

Top 3 leaders’ results

Let’s describe the performance of the Top 3 lifters:

🥉SURODCHANA KHAMBAO – 106 kg
🥈RIRA SUZUKI – 109 kg
🥇RI SONG GUM – 125 kg

The Thai lifter Surodchana Khambao took bronze with her lift of 106 kg she performed on the third try. Her first lift wasn’t successful trying to lift 103 kg, although she gathered her strengths and showed good lifts on the second try with the same weight and the third one of 106 kg.

Rira Suzuki from Japan succeeded in getting a silver medal with a solid 109 kg on the second attempt. Today we spectated the powerful performance: 105 kg on the first attempt and 109 kg on the second try. Although she decided to decline her third attempt that didn’t hinder her from getting the silver medal. What’s more, she lifted 3 kilos more than her contender from the third place.

The gold medal went to Ri Song Gum who impressed everyone today with incredible lifts. All her lifts were successful: incredible 117 kg on the first try, 122 kg – on the second attempt, and the last triumphal one was 125 kg. Meaning, she succeeded in setting the new Senior World and Asian Records, with 1 kilo better compared to her prior result of 124 kg.

Considering the results of the C&J exercise, we can state that successful and failed lifts were divided separately. Some lifters were out of focus or lost their strength for the second round, while others managed to show decent lifts.

The leaders’ board changed a bit, with Thai Surodchana and Korean Ri Song Gum remaining in their positions, the third and first spots respectively. However, the second place moved from Philipo Rosegie Ramos to the Japanese lifter Rira Suzuki who accumulated all her power to show better results in Clean & Jerk.

The most outstanding event during the performance of the 49-kg weight class was the exemplary lifts of Ri Song Gum. Being a tiny and extremely powerful athlete, she proved her lifting skills, mastery, and inner determination by setting a new Senior World and Asian Record in the C&J round.

Total Results

1. RI SONG GUM – 220 kg 
2. RIRA SUZUKI –  191 kg 
3. ROSEGIE A. RAMOS – 190 kg 
4. SURODCHANA KHAMBAO – 190 kg 
5. LIN CHENG-JING – 187 kg 
6. FANG WAN-LING – 184 kg

So, the category leader became Ri Song Gum who showed remarkable lifts resulting in 220 kg in total. She finished with an immense weight gap between her rival in second place in 29 kilos! She also improved her total by 4 kilos: she got 216 kg at the 2022 Asian Games setting the World Record. Although, today she surpassed herself and proved that she’s the strongest lifter in the 49-kg weight class.

The silver medalist became Japanese Rira Suzuki: she finished her performance with 191 kg. She showed remarkable results as she improved her ranking compared to her performance at the World Championship in Riyadh, where she finished in eighth place. Still, she has already shown great results in Tashkent in 2021 at the Worlds: she was second with a total result of 179 kg. 

Rosegie A. Ramos from the Phillippines was third today with 190 kg in total. Today she showed almost the same results as she got at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou. By the way, these are her best totals and Snatch results.

Conclusion

Overall, the performance in the 49-kg category proved to us once more that strong inner persistence and discipline play crucial roles in successful performance. With the help of a tough training regime, lifters can gain great results both at speed-oriented lifting exercises and strength-targeted ones. 

Keep on watching our videos as we’re going to highlight the performances in the next Olympic categories. Don’t miss it, no less intriguing things will happen tomorrow. Subscribe to our channel and like our video! 

Stay strong and warm body cold mind!